


To throw yourself at the ground and miss

by SquaresAreNotCircles



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, i wrote the first line and was then forced to get them together over a fly in some beer, not crack, probably set in late s10 or post-canon but pretty vague on specifics, this would be rated safe on doestheflydie.com
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:28:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26073439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquaresAreNotCircles/pseuds/SquaresAreNotCircles
Summary: "Don't," Danny warns, but while Eddie lying a few feet away in the grass dappled with spots of afternoon sun briefly raises his head, the fly doesn't listen.Or: There's a fly in Danny's beer. Steve is in Danny's heart. It's all exceptionally inconvenient.
Relationships: Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Comments: 44
Kudos: 217





	To throw yourself at the ground and miss

**Author's Note:**

> Writer's block is an interesting beast, so have something that came from utter nonsense and might still be there, but at least was fun to write.
> 
> The title is from Douglas Adams' _Life, The Universe And Everything_ from the Hitchhiker's Guide series, and the full quote reads: "There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."

There's a fly in his beer. It's not very big, but it's not small. It's a decently mid-sized, disproportionally bold fly, dancing along the rim of his glass and occasionally veering right like it wants to explore the foamy gold deeper down but keeps hesitating. It's a metaphor for Danny's life: he keeps circling the thing he really wants, around and around for a decade, but in the end he's left dizzy and wanting.

The difference, of course, is that the fly really _shouldn't_ jump in, because the result is likely to be death in a literal rather than a metaphorical sense.

"Don't," Danny warns, but while Eddie lying a few feet away in the grass dappled with spots of afternoon sun briefly raises his head, the fly doesn't listen. It wanders down the inside of the glass in an unsteady spiral, like it probably shouldn't even be having anything more intoxicating than tap water in the first place.

"Don't what?" Steve asks. There's the thing Danny keeps circling, emerging from the direction of the house. He sits down next to Danny with his fresh beer in a bottle, which he's carrying with his thumb over the opening. 

Danny hates that efficient practicality sometimes. He may have made the decision to pour his bottle out into a glass all on his own, just because it was a nice afternoon and he wanted to take the time to enjoy his drink, but that doesn't mean it feels entirely fair that he now has to pay for the consequences of his actions.

He scoots over a bit on the nice wooden garden bench. It's more or less new. He threw it into the mix of outdoor seating in the McGarrett yard when he gave up on pretending he'd ever find another place of his own for all the stuff he still kept stashed in garage boxes, and instead admitted that he'd officially moved in with his best friend at forty-something. 

Best friend. Nothing more, however dizzy Danny might be by now.

Steve also scoots, but closer, negating Danny's resentful attempt at creating a little space. His elbow nudges Danny's. "Did you know there's a fly in your beer?"

"Yes, I-" That's when Danny actually looks at his beer again and catches on to Steve's full meaning. There's a decently mid-sized fly in the actual beer, desperately drowning, leaving little trails of bubbles in the wake of its death struggle. Is this what awaits Danny if he ever takes the leap? "Oh, damn it," he says for now, because there's also the more earthly concern of an insect in his drink.

Steve takes a sip from his fly-free bottle. It somehow comes across as self-satisfied, which would be an impressive feat if it weren't so infuriating. "Maybe you should get it out."

Danny glares at the interloper, but victim blaming never did anybody any good. He'd glare at Steve, except he doesn't want to look away from the flailing. "Ugh," he says, and grudgingly accepts the mutual necessity of lending aid and sticks his pointer finger in the glass. 

Steve leans a little closer still, connecting their shoulders. His presence is welcome but overwhelming, a duality with which Danny is still learning to deal after all this time.

"Come on, buddy," Steve cajoles. "You can do it." For a moment Danny thinks it's aimed at him, but then he realizes Steve is keeping a close eye on the proceedings near the beer surface and he's cheering on the fly. Of course he is. Next he's going to adopt it, learn how to make tiny pool noodles and teach it how to swim.

"You're an idiot." That's a given, but sometimes it still needs to be said.

Steve pushes in even more, elbows on knees. He gives Danny a brief look, but mostly he watches the glass. "No, you're not. Don't listen to Mr. Negative."

Danny didn't mean the fly. Steve knows full well Danny didn't mean the fly. Danny knows Steve knows he didn't mean the fly, so he's not going to lower himself by dignifying that with a response.

The fly, proving it has a tiny fly brain, finally latches onto Danny's finger. Danny scoops it up and then he has a dripping finger with a half-drowned but still living fly on it. His day is going great.

"You're a hero," Steve says. He leans back and grins and sips from his beer again. Danny staunchly refuses to let it distract him.

And he would tell Steve to shut up, but he's too preoccupied with the fly. Flinging it into the grass seems a bit harsh and might cause Eddie to think it's meant for him. The way it's sprawled out gasping for breath calls to mind the aftermath of some of Steve's less advisable aquatic adventures, which tugs at Danny's heartstrings, despite Steve being a smug idiot who's so distracting it leaves him light-headed. In the end, Danny gently nudges the fly from the pad of his finger onto the armrest of the bench to dry up and groom its little wings, or whatever flies do after taking a nosedive.

"And you call me a half-baked cookie," Steve says, from right behind him. He sounds amused, which is almost always dangerous, so Danny turns to him and waves his beery finger about.

"See? This is what I get for following your do-gooder advice." He dipped his finger in beer up to the second knuckle, but as they both watch a drop forms and pools in the bend where index and middle finger connect. "Now I'm gonna have to go inside and clean up."

Steve's attention is on Danny's hand, but he shakes his head a little. "I didn't tell you to do anything."

"You told me to save the beer thief," Danny argues, like they don't both know he would have done that anyway.

Instead of replying Steve grunts and grabs Danny's hand. Danny is surprised and barely resists, so Steve pulls their hands to his face and wraps his mouth around Danny's index finger with little to no struggle. Danny goes ice cold and then very, very hot. Steve sucks the finger in to the root and his tongue swirls around like he's not just cleaning up but maybe also making a point, but Danny can't ask what it is, because the words he wants to say swirl around his brain much the same.

When Steve lets his finger go, it goes from enveloped by warm wet soft heat to just plain wet. It's less sticky than it was, but now it tingles.

Danny stares at it once he's got it back, and then he stares at Steve just for fun. "You don't even know when I last washed my hands."

Steve, apparently set on pretending this is normal for them, huffs drily with his warm wet soft mouth. That's not going to leave Danny's awareness any time soon. "Like you still have any germs I don't."

Which strikes Danny as sweet, in a crazy way. Sweet makes him think of cookies, which makes him check on the armrest. It's empty. The fly isn't in the grass beneath, so it didn't just drop dead and fall off; it seems Danny successfully saved a life.

Taking the leap wasn't fatal after all.

"Looking for another fly to save?" Steve asks. Like maybe he might want Danny to. Like maybe he might want Danny to do a lot of things.

Danny drains the remaining half of his beer, finds Steve watching him when he's done, and says, "Hey."

"Hmm?" Steve asks, not taking his eyes off of Danny. They're not wet, but definitely warm and soft, and with a shudder Danny realizes he can't remember Steve looking at him any other way.

"Can you tell me if my beer tastes weird?" He leaped. He's free-falling.

Steve's eyebrows lift. "How do you propose I do that? You just finished it."

Danny plants his glass on the ground by his feet so at least one thing won't shatter. "Come here," he says, and Steve comes, and he has a hand in Danny's neck before Danny even kisses him, which implies it's not much of a surprise when it does happen. Steve may be an idiot, but he's even better at playing one.

Danny stops circling Steve and circles Steve's tongue for a change. It leaves him a whole new kind of dizzy.

"Not weird at all," Steve says, somewhere in the heady, giddy-drunk middle. Danny agrees, and has to wonder why he couldn't have found a fly in his beer years ago.

(They eventually part rather abruptly when Steve startles and yells "fuck!" and, as it turns out, suddenly has a decently sized beer stain on the crotch of his pants because even bottles are no help if you get too distracted kissing your not entirely platonic best friend to keep them upright and covered with a thumb.

"Need me to clean that up?" Danny asks, because returning the favor is the polite thing to do.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! Comments are nice, and I hope you don't need to rescue anything from your drinks today.


End file.
